A drill instructor in the National Guard has been convicted in a Wisconsin federal court of illegally transferring a machine gun after a rifle he loaned to a student malfunctioned, setting off three shots before jamming.WorldNetDaily reports on a story we touched on here.
Just more of the same from the administration of the "Vote Freedom First" president...
[Via Ryan Horsley]
10 comments:
This is adding up to be the perfect storm against the machine gun ban -- and a major mistake by the ATF.
If DC vs. Heller finds an individual right, and establishes any standard of judicial review, this case will have to be reviewed in that light. This is a gross and blindingly obvious miscarriage of justice. There is no way that the case will fail to be appealed. There is no way that this defendant will be denied "standing". The end result is that the Heller standard (whatever standard is decided) will have to be applied... to the machine gun ban.
The facts of this case are egregious; the actions of the defendant are utterly innocent and the circumstances unforeseeable. Add to that, the defendant is a person above reproach, and a hero. The only "bad guy" in the story is the unconstitutional reach of the law and the ATF which enforces it to the (absurd) letter. You just couldn't invent a case any more perfectly suited to judicial review -- and here comes the Heller decision just in time.
I'm not sure what the ATF was thinking. They should have testified for the defendant, not the prosecutor, in order to protect the machine gun ban from direct challenge. Now they face a smashing defeat and a devastating precedent on appeal. It's like the left hand (the ATF in this case) doesn't know what the right hand (ATF Chief Counsel in Heller) is doing.
This is why I don't believe in conspiracy theories. "The Three Stooges" is a better theoretical model for understanding government actions.
Prediction: expect to see a pardon drop from on high in order to deny the defendant standing at the next level of appeal. It will be couched as "righting a great wrong", not "protecting a bad law".
someone please help me understand how conviction verdicts are coming out of the jury room.
A friend reassembled his SKS carbine incorrectly.
Upon firing, the disconnecter would sometimes fail to catch the sear, and the carbine would fire two or three round bursts.
I took the rifle apart and reassembled it correctly.
It has worked fine now for hundreds of rounds.
I guess his inadvertent mistake was a felony.
I'm glad no "peace officers" were around when the malfunctions occurred.
What a bunch of crap.
This just goes to show you - If someone is on a jury, they have been diagnosed as having room-temperature IQs.
Seems to me that that's not a jury of your peers...
I had my AR out at a range down in PA that allowed only 3 rounds to be loaded in rifles.
First shot was fine. The last two rounds went with one pull. Came as quite the surprise to me. First and only time that has happened to me. Luckily for me there weren't any standing army types around, I suspect that they'd have tried to get me for possession AND moving it out of state without the proper papers.
If you look at the list of questions used to form the jury it becomes clearer. Any gun owner who does live under a rock would not have gotten through that jury selection without lying. Not to mention the modern "jury instructions" which may have been used in this case as well to return the verdict that the government(judge) wanted. (e.g. the jury instructions in the Wayne Fincher case.)
This case does make one a bit more reticent about going to public ranges.
I commented on the earlier post that I had doubts as to the honesty of the judge based on what he failed to do. It appears he is just as much a criminal as is Jimm Larry Hendren. We can now add the name Clevert to the list of American traitors.
This magnitude of injustice could not have been achieved without his active participation.
Peers should have included gun owners, and his attorney(s) should have been better at ensuring that.
We don't even think of trying African Americans with an all-white jury, why should gun owners be any different?
Thanks to this conviction, the de facto law is yet another 'strict liability' law which takes out the element of intent and even negligence. This is completely opposite of the Staples case, and very many other 'strict liability' cases throughout SCOTUS history.
The only way this won't be overturned, is if appellate courts refuse to hear it.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about having a right to a jury of your peers.
http://usconstitution.net/constnot.html#jury
That concept dates from English common law, and simply acknowledged that commoners wouldn't sit in judgment of nobility. Since we don't live in an aristocracy, everyone is your peer.
Tell that to snuffy :p
Sorry, that was a cheap shot,
If you were to phrase the question: "was the defendant in posession of a weapon capable of firing more than one shot per trigger pull?", then it's not surprising this is the outcome.
Still, shouldn't this be covered under the "a gun that can readily be restored/converted to fully automatic fire" section?
Sounds like a faulty product in that regard
Laughingdog, Please tell us what "Due Process" is then.
Post a Comment